Stop me if you’ve heard this before: A Pittsburgh player leaves the team less than a semester into the season.

This time it’s John Johnson, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Johnson, a 6-1 guard from Philadelphia, didn’t play a minute in the Panthers’ 80-48 victory over Mt. St. Mary’s in their season opener on Friday night.

This is starting to become a trend for Jamie Dixon. Johnson is the second player in the past two seasons to transfer from the program before his first full semester on campus. Prized recruit Khem Birch left the team after 10 games last season. He’ll be eligible for UNLV at the end of this semester.

Is it a coincidence or something that those covering hoops will want to monitor? I’d still need to see more proof before we start raising eyebrows, but something obviously isn’t right for two players to leave this quickly into a season in consecutive years from a program that has had sustained success under Dixon.

Johnson combined to play a total of 29 minutes and score nine points in two exhibition games, including playing 17 minutes and scoring seven points in the second exhibition game, against Hawaii-Hilo.

As a freshman, Johnson averaged 4.2 points per game and hit 33 three-pointers on the season, fifth on the team. He played in all 39 games with two starts.

After reviewing everything, this looks like a case of a disgruntled player. He lost his minutes, however early in the season, to newcomer Trey Zeigler (11 points in his Pitt debut) and freshman James Robinson (six points, four rebounds in 29 minutes). You hate to see players make knee-jerk reactions like this, but hey, in this day of the “produce or get gone” mentality, it’s going to keep happening.